Auto verses manual. It’s one of the most common debates in the photography world, especially for beginners.
Cutting to the chase, I’ll give you the number of shoots where I used auto mode for even a single shot: 0.
In all of the shoots I’ve done, I’ve never used it.
And how often and where I use manual: sometimes…and it depends.
For professional work, auto mode is a big no no. The camera’s settings will be jumping all over the place in the mission of obtaining a neutral exposure. If, for one example, you’re photographing a group of people, they may all be in focus for one shot. But then, if/when you inadvertently point at someone wearing a white shirt, the light meter will adjust the exposure and subsequently narrow the aperture to compensate.
Your subsequent shots will likely have some of the subjects out of focus as a result. And friendly reminder: a subject being out of focus is something that can not be fixed in post.
So you’re probably wondering: if I only use manual sometimes and never use auto, then what about the rest?
This is where A and S mode come into play. They stand for aperture priority and shutter speed priority, respectively.
A mode is where you set the aperture manually, and the camera will adjust the shutter speed accordingly to get a neutral exposure. The reverse is true for shutter speed priority. Just keep in mind that the latter has considerably less wiggle room. A lens can only open so wide, but most cameras nowadays can go down to 1/8000th of a second, sometimes even faster.
The former is what I shoot with the vast majority of the time.
In A mode, I control the depth of field. So I adjust that accordingly, but I also keep a sharp eye on my shutter speed. If it goes below 1/100th, I risk motion blur from my hands shaking, even for still subjects. If the subject is moving, then I raise that threshold. It’s possible to get sharp shots below 1/100th, mind you. But keeping it no slower than 1/100th is a good (and easy to remember) safety net.
Meanwhile, I also have ISO set to manual. I’ve found that my camera prefers to really crank it up higher than it needs to be. Case in point: when I’m on the dance floor with my flash (and it’s dark), 6,400 often suffices for sharp, dancing subjects. If they’re blurry, then 8,000 works (since it speeds up the shutter speed to compensate for the increased sensitivity to light). But if I set it to auto? The camera spikes it to 12,800, or even 16,000.
It’s literally doubling it, when it’s already high as it is. But the key takeaway is that the subjects are already perfectly sharp at the levels I had them at. So it would make my nighttime images much grainier than they need to be. Denoising has made leaps and bounds in recent years, but there still is a point of no return if the ISO is too high. You want as little noise as possible to have an optimal exposure with no motion blur with minimal quality lost.
Circling back to the subject of M, I’ve trained newer photographers who have shot entire weddings in it. Probably because another pro told them “don’t shoot in auto.”
And they weren’t inherently wrong. But spending eight hours shooting in M is going to increase risk of missed shots and time in the editing room. With how chaotic weddings are, you’re adding another constant chore to your to-do list by having to check your light meter before every shot. Almost every shot, if not all of them, will at best be either marginally under or overexposed, if not more. Such shots can be saved, but it’s extra work that is completely avoidable.
Of course, in my experience, there are still times where using it helps considerably. I’ve shot wedding ceremonies in shade, and the low light would make it difficult for my camera to lock onto the wedding party walking up and down the aisle. By raising it in manual by no more than one stop, you brighten them up in the viewfinder and subsequently make it much easier for your camera’s focus to lock onto their eyes. So the takeaway here isn’t to never use manual. But only when warranted.
When I shoot in A, two of the three elements of the exposure triangle are manually set by me, so I keep it on a short leash. But it allows me to control the depth of field/focus, ensure the camera’s exposure is set to neutral, and won’t make the noise go off the charts. If the shutter is too low, I bump up the ISO accordingly.
Most of my instances where I shoot in M are for creative shoots, such as landscapes/long exposures. Or if I take portraits at the beach with strong sunlight (even at sunset), I manually lower the exposure by about a stop. The sun is the brightest object on (off?) Earth, so it’ll still be overexposed, even when the camera’s exposure is neutral. Lowering it can help give a scenic background that doesn’t look like a nuclear bomb is going off in the distance.
Send this to someone just starting out in event photography so they can start crushing their goals. I believe in you.